Honour killing in India is both a social evil and a constitutional violation. Analyse the legal framework available for its prevention and the challenges in enforcement.

Honour killing — the murder of a person by family or caste-community members for a relationship transgressing caste or clan norms — treats endogamy as superior to individual liberty. In Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018) the Supreme Court held that any attempt by khap panchayats to stop two consenting adults from marrying is illegal [1]. It is thus simultaneously a social pathology and an assault on Articles 19 and 21.

Constitutional and statutory framework

• Article 17 (abolition of untouchability) and Article 21 (life, liberty, choice of partner) anchor the protective architecture; Article 15 bars caste discrimination.
• No standalone "honour killing" offence exists — prosecution proceeds under BNS provisions on murder, abetment and criminal conspiracy, read with the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 where the victim is SC/ST [2].
• The PoA Act provides Special Courts (Sec. 14), a bar on anticipatory bail (Sec. 18), and relief-rehabilitation under the 1995 Rules [2]. The 2018 Amendment inserted Sec. 18A, removing preliminary inquiry and prior sanction for arrest, restoring the Act's rigour after judicial dilution [3].
• Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 supplements it; the Dr. Ambedkar Scheme for Social Integration through Inter-Caste Marriages offers financial incentive where one spouse is SC [4].
• Shakti Vahini directed district special cells, safe houses and a 24-hour helpline for threatened couples [1]; the National Helpline Against Atrocities (14566) operationalises PoA grievance redressal [5].

Enforcement challenges

• Definitional gap: absence of a distinct offence obscures motive, weakening data collection and sentencing.
• Complicity of the primary witness-group: killings are family-executed, so complaints, testimony and identification collapse — a structural cause of low conviction under the PoA Act.
• Local resistance: caste-dominant panchayat pressure and delayed post-mortems create investigative vacuums, as recent Tamil Nadu incidents show.
• Capacity deficits: uneven functioning of Exclusive Special Courts and patchy implementation of safe houses across states.

Prevention therefore needs enforcement to move upstream — activating Shakti Vahini's safe-house and special-cell directions, time-bound Special Court trials, and scaled inter-caste marriage support. Combining deterrent law with social incentive advances the constitutional promise of dignity and equality that makes choice of partner a right, not a concession.